Help with "First Blood" achievement

[coldlionheart]

Hey everyone. I've been trying to get the achievement but I can't seem to get past 5-6 kills before I either run out of money, time, or my captain dies. I've tried the blockade approach with both a dragoon / interceptor start. I've tried pirate and BH starts. I've been trying to maximize my crew at the start for battle. but I just can't seem to get a good rhythm going.

Does anyone have any tips or tricks to knock this achievement out? I admit I am starting to bang my head having to manually level my crew every 15-20 min with a new start.

[nerdcommando.gamestudios]

First, all your officers should level up commander & military officer profession. Your captain should start with 10 command, 10 tactics. You need to get to 40+ Command stat, that'll make combat much easier.

Second, interceptor is much better here, stick to that.

Third - blockade and attack only non-military ships. Merchants, smugglers, etc. Surprisingly enough, they're not half as tough as your militant guys.

[Trese Brothers]

Some great tips in this thread if you look through the posts.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/335620/discussions/4/2534848209927685855/

[lighthawkknight]

Having a Military Officer with the Stiff Salute talent goes a long way. It's a great tool you can use to avoid the tough military officer ships and has a pretty short CD.

[Seswatha]

72 kills in 5 years with this build on Impossible, and much more than needed for the unlock in the first 2: https://steamcommunity.com/app/335620/discussions/0/1736589519993111997/

Should be easy peasy on Normal.

[Cai]

As someone who just got this achievement less than 12 hours ago? There's a lot of unanswered questions by the OP, but I'll try to help. Here's how I did it:

A: Experience - Pirate
B: Ship
C: Attributes split between charisma and reslience
D: Skills - Put them all in intimidate
E: Contacts - A smuggler

Here's the thing about First Blood: It demands you learn how to fight well. I went from knowing nothing about ship combat to going for this so I spent some time learning harsh lessons with death spirals and executions.

When leveling your officers, look for anyone with combat skills on their stats, give them a job to help with that and make them fight. Put Combat Medic on your doctor and take a healing ability (I took the doctor one that heals the most hp on one target). Take the extra salvage ability on the mechanic. Take talents that will help you stay in control of the fight, and take sharp steering a couple times since it lets you close in and run if needed so it has versatility.

The most important thing you need to learn for First Blood is pick your fights well. If you see a military ship, avoid the fight or run once in combat. I lost more captains because I picked I fight I should have let go than I should have. You only need one fight every ten weeks on average, so don't panic too much if you get a few weeks in and haven't gotten anything yet.

Mostly, I just patrol the nearest not my faction planet, Zenrin in this case lux pop. I went Cadar for this run. My seed was st-v01-20-2-82736657 .

Upgrades: I used boarding a lot and used the gunner talent that let me board at range 3 so I rushed a weapons locker 3 so I had a bit of an edge there. Upgrade ship weapons when you can but if you choose easy fights this isn't a huge deal.

Deliver the arbiter to Faen and buy two levels of trade permits so you have a place to sell most of the loot up to permit level 2.

Hopefully this helps. It's not an easy achievement, but there's a lot you learn getting it that's valuable.

[Grigsey]

Do you have the palace interceptor unlocked? If so use that ship + the previously mentioned ultra command heavy captain and officer crew. I only started w/ a lvl 2 captain so it's doable with low level. I believe starting settings were skills then ship then stats then experience then contacts. Set the galaxy and what not to maximum stuff all closly clustered.

Now, start patrolling or blockaiding whoever is in the zone that isn't your main faction. Do not leave your starting system. If the cards that come up for patrol that probably will screw you switch to blockaiding. Once that runs out of decent options or you need to repair go do that and repeat the patrol cycle.

Money you get early game should immediately replace the passenger cabin with a defense matrix, pilot or nav assist. Upgrade ship weaponry.

The first 1-3 fights, if you get past them, you got this in the bag pretty much.

Besides command your most imporant ship skills are going to be pilot, navigation, and electronics. It's not a bad idea to make your officer a pilot/navigator/pirate off the bat.

Overall, Palace Interceptor ftw, you can do this, you got this, yuss.

[coldlionheart]

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

I never realized that command makes such a difference. I had been putting my points into intimidate for the blockades.

*Edit* - Yay, I finally did it! For anyone thats curious, it seems that following the max command crew really made a difference. I still had about 20 weeks remaining when I finished the achievement, and didn't have a fight that I took more than 2-3 hits from the enemy ship.

[andymcnish]

Bit of a necro but I did this easily just now (18 sjips killed) another way.

You really only need to do two things.

Get a decent bonus in tactics (for the ship combat) and have lots of engineers for the talents that repair ship components after a successful combat (lvl 5) and when you dock (lvl 1). That means taking the military commander as your contact.

So as soon as I first land I get rid of the crew combat crew and a couple of e-techs.

I then run missions exclusively for the military commander until I can recruit lvl 6+ engineers.

The problem in killing 10 ships in 1040 turns (2 years) is the repair time, not outmatching the ships.

I go the patrol method (which helps keep whatever planet you are above friendly for repairs, spice and doctoring etc.) and use the lvl 1 crew dog re-roll skill and the lvl 5 gunner 'remove patrol card' one as and when needed (although apart from xeno or crew death there isn't anything you care about really - I often found myself removing the missed turn even as I'm against the clock).

As for weapons I just take 2 of the highest level range 4 missile batteries I can afford and then update the range 5 missile as well. Stay at range 4 if possible.

I might take a spy or merchant down opportunistically earlier but it's about turn 800 when I park in orbit and start chaining the kills...

[Cutlass Jack]

I keep meaning to work on this unlock. Question: Does the method you defeat the ship matter? Specifically does it matter if you do it via boarding or must it be purely ship combat?

[wendigo211]

I did it with a boarding captain, using the Longbolt as my ship. So you can win through crew combat as opposed to ship combat

Probably the easiest set up for this unlock would be:

• Priority A Skills: For 10 points in Command and Tactics, rest in intimidate
  
• Priority B or D Ship: If you have the Aeturnum Vindex or Palace Interceptor unlocked go for B, otherwise if you have the Longbolt go for D. I suppose you could also try the Scout Cutter, but you might to unlock some of the other ships first if that's all you have. You just want to stay away from the 5000m or higher ships since in the early game speed/agility is worth more than more crew/components.
  
• Next highest priority attributes.
  
• Lowest priority would be contacts or possibly experience. For starting class you want Commander or Smuggler for their ship combat traits. Contacts might be more valuable than experience if they let you hire some Pirates (Blackheart) or Military Officers (FDF Commander) on to your crew, and some of the early in system delivery quests could help you buy some quick upgrades. Even with the 2 year time limit, you will level fast enough that experience doesn't make much of a difference, but it could help with that first or second battle.

Your first priority would be to get enough money to get a few DPMs and decent weapons on your ships (200 K should be enough) after that, blockade or patrol until you get the unlock. Blockade will get you more money, but Patrol will put you in orbit of a friendly planet if you need to repair or refuel. Try to fight the 5000 m ships, most of them are really easy kills.

[Cutlass Jack]

Thanks Boarding did indeed work for this. Was quite easy with all the advice here. Ended up doing it with a custom Military Officer/Pistoleer captain. Took the Palace Interceptor which was a great ship for this right out of the box. The only upgrade I did was the weapons locker.

Then just simply parked myself in orbit and patrolled til I got the unlock. Landing between each fight to heal up. Had plenty of time to spare.